Change of Plans for South Point Poker

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Thursday, July 25th, 2013 | Written by Charles Washington

A big change is in the works at South Point’s online gambling division.

Reports from multiple sites this week assert that the company has decided to scrap the South Point Poker brand for their online gambling product.

The replacement brand: Real Gaming.

No public reason offered for change

As mentioned above, this change has yet to be formally confirmed by South Point, although it is being widely reported with any correction from the company.

As such, we have little insight into why South Point chose to change brands so close to launch, and why they specifically made the choice to put aside their already-developed brand in favor of a more generic identity.

New brand potentially offers more flexibility

Some have speculated that South Point was driven by a desire to maintain maximum flexibility with regard to the larger opportunity U.S. regulated online gambling represents.

As South Point Poker, the company would be tied to an operator identity, and would be somewhat limited in terms of the partnerships they could pursue. For example, a South Point / Wynn partnership would be something of a brand mess.

But adopting a more generic brand that is separate from their casino identity allows South Point to pursue either an operator path, a service / software provider path, or even both – depending on which opportunity appears most profitable for them at a given point in time.

With so much uncertainty still surrounding the pace of regulation in America, and with major operators like 888 grabbing so much of the early market, South Point may have simply decided that their optimal path was to keep their options as open as possible.

It’s also possible that South Point could be making the change to support a still-unannounced partnership, possibly with Revel or the ACC in New Jersey.

South Point behind competition despite head start

That explanation also offers something of an explanation for another mystery – namely, why has South Point, the first company to receive a Nevada online poker license, remained on the sidelines in the Nevada market?

While having the initial license is no guarantee of a head start in terms of development, the prevailing wisdom at the time was that South Point would be in a good position to be first to market. And the company even suggested a few tentative launch dates, all of which came and went with no real-money games arriving at South Point Poker.

Meanwhile, Ultimate Poker became the first site to actually deal a hand of real-money poker under Nevada’s regulatory system. And a multitude of other operators were granted the same license South Point holds.

Still no firm date for launch at South Point / Real Gaming

The result is a market in Nevada where South Point – or, rather, Real Gaming – could realistically be one of the later entrants despite leading the pack at the start of the race.

Caesars, through WSOP.com, and Treasure Island, via a partnership with 888, have both announced their intentions to be live by summer’s end.

But South Point remains without a firm launch target.

And there’s some speculation, albeit completely hypothetical, that the brand change could delay the entry of South Point into the Nevada market for online poker even further.